Moderator: SC Moderators
Dnate Mars wrote:Oh, and so far there have been 3 chancellors. A SP, a DPU, and now a nuCARE. So, that means that 3 of the 4 factions have chancellor, so I still don't see the unfairness.
Well, we will just have to disagree about this. In my book if you are elected by SP and CARE (with some background negotiation) then those are who you represent. So the list is: SP, SP / CARE, and NuCARE.
Jon Seattle wrote:Dnate Mars wrote:Oh, and so far there have been 3 chancellors. A SP, a DPU, and now a nuCARE. So, that means that 3 of the 4 factions have chancellor, so I still don't see the unfairness.
Well, we will just have to disagree about this. In my book if you are elected by SP and CARE (with some background negotiation) then those are who you represent. So the list is: SP, SP / CARE, and NuCARE.
By that definition, I was elected by the DPU.
Yes you were, and also by the CSDF. Surprised?
Jon --
The point is that you defined the party of the Chancellor as being aligned with the PArty that supported that person in the vote. By that measure the CSDF has had 2 Chancellors -- more than any other Party other than the DPU, which we would expect given the strength of the CSDF and the historical strength of the DPU. The Chancellors would be: CSDF/DPU; SP/CARE; CSDF/NuCARE/DPU.
However, to be fair, I should probably treat CARE and NuCARE as the same party (or as least as predecessor/successor parties). I also acknowledge that Aliasi was a founding member of the SP, and we didn't vote for her only because we did not exist at the time of the vote. We are proud of and honored by Aliasi's work as Chancellor. In that case, guess what -- all parties have been equally powerful in selecting our Chancellor -- not through force of personal will, but through genuine coalition building! Can we get more fair than that?
Beathan
I have submitted the following amendments to Beathan's RA Process Bill to Brian Livingston for consideration at the next RA meeting.
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Amendment One
Delete 1 in its original and alternative versions i.e. the paragraphs starting "1. Whenever any member of the RA is allowed...." and "Alternative 1. Seven day votes shall only be allowed for RA members with an exused absence...".
Amendment Two
Delete paragraph 2.
Amendment Three
Delete paragraph 3 and the following section from the RA Meeting Procedures:
"The Leader of the RA (LRA) will determine the agenda for each meeting, and publish it on a notecard before each meeting." and "The LRA at all times determines the order of the agenda."
and add this to the start of paragraph 1 of the RA Meeting Procedures:
"The LRA will publish the draft agenda for RA meetings at least 24 hours in advance on the CDS forums. RA members may request alterations to the agenda before the meeting by contacting the LRA inworld, through IM or email. If an RA member wants to make an alteration to the order of the agenda when the final version is presented to the meeting they may do so by proposing a procedural motion at the start of the meeting before the first item is discussed. Any alteration to the order of the agenda requires a 2/3 majority of the members present."
Amendment Four
Delete paragraph 4 and alternative 4. Amend Article I, section 2 of the CDS Constitution by replacing the following paragraph:
"The number of representative seats in the RA is equal to the odd whole number nearest to 10% of the population, rounded down, with a minimum of five seats and a maximum of forty seats." with
"There are five seats in the RA." This provision is to take effect with the RA elected in July 2008 i.e. the next RA.
Amendment Five
Delete paragraph 5 and the alternative version.
Amendment Six
Delete paragraph 6.
Edited to make it clear this applies to the next RA onwards, not to the current one.
I had no idea that you were so anti-democratic. Limiting the # of reps to a fixed number, and giving/guaranteeing the LRA absolute power is rather dangerous.
The next step would be to limit the votes of the RA to only be in agreement with the LRA! 
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"Nenia peno nek provo donos lakton de bovo."
Here's a little additional rationale for my proposed amendments:
RA Agenda
My Amendment Three (text above) would move us from a situation where the LRA has a great deal of control over the agenda for meetings to one where the responsibility is shared to a greater extent with the other RA members. It is right that the LRA, as the rep with the highest 'approval rating' in the faction with the highest share of the vote, should determine the agenda for meetings and publish it in advance so that everyone has a chance to see what is coming up at the RA meeting. It is also right that RA members should have a method for changing the order of the agenda if the LRA misuses this power to put some items at the bottom of the agenda thus preventing them from being discussed. But Beathan's proposal goes too far in the other direction. If the RA is allowed to change the agenda by simply majority vote (instead of a 2/3 vote as I propose) then the least popular parties in the RA would, by acting in concert, be able to deny the most popular faction any chance to enact their legislation. In the current RA it would only take two out of the three factions which did less well at the elections to vote CSDF legislation down to the bottom of the agenda at every meeting. I don't think that swapping 'LRA dictat' (if that's what it was) with 'the tyranny of the minority' is really a step forward for democracy. Hence, I think the RA should reject paragraph 3 of Beathan's proposal and adopt my amendment to the RA Meeting Procedures instead.
Number of Seats
A number of people have said that the problem of incivility and lack of order in RA meetings is due to the change in size from 5 to 7 members. The theory is that 3 people can get along without any real rules of procedure, 5 can get along with the minimal ones we have but that, at 7, you need something more formal. I don't accept that analysis; we actually did pretty well with the current meeting procedures in previous RAs with 7 members. But, assuming that the analysis is correct, one way to deal with the current problem without adopting a complicated 160 pages of new procedures would be to limit the RA to five members in future. That way, we could continue with the set of rules we have and have a reasonable chance of achieving orderly, constructive, effective RA meetings. I've always thought that it's a bit daft that we insist that 10% of the CDS population should be prepared to serve in the legislature! If you take into account the need to have a contest between parties that means we have to have at least 20-30% of our citizens willing to take up such roles; this is clearly unrealistic! One representative per 20 citizens is far from 'undemocratic'; the ratio is more like 1:60 000 in many mature democracies. Until we have greatly expanded our numbers a 5-person RA would be more than adequate for our needs.
Bromo Ivory wrote:I had no idea that you were so anti-democratic. Limiting the # of reps to a fixed number, and giving/guaranteeing the LRA absolute power is rather dangerous.
The next step would be to limit the votes of the RA to only be in agreement with the LRA!
Bromo --
I agree with you about the LRA. However, limiting the number of seats does not strike me as being fundamentally undemocratic. In the US, the House has a fixed number of seats -- and as the population grows, so does each Congressman's constituency. This does not seem undemocratic.
However, I think that limited the RA to such a small size is problematic. I would be willing to cap the RA at, say, 100 -- on a theoretical model of the CDS becoming a substantially large virtual state. I therefore think that the RA cap proposal is premature, but not undemocratic.
This might get us to Salzie's point. The key is what we want the CDS to be. Do we want to be a democratic town? In such case, having a town council of 5 or 7 is usual -- and capping that number is not undemocratic. However, do we have ambitions of virtual statehood, rather than mere citystatehood? If so, the cap is premature. I disagree with Salzie in that I don't think we should answer these questions before engaging in expansion that is desirable whether we are a nationstate or a citystate, but I do think these questions need to be answered -- especially in light of the question of how big the RA should be and of what role the RA should have in our state.
Beathan
Beathan wrote:However, I think that limited the RA to such a small size is problematic. I would be willing to cap the RA at, say, 100 -- on a theoretical model of the CDS becoming a substantially large virtual state. I therefore think that the RA cap proposal is premature, but not undemocratic.
The current constitution already caps the number of RA members to 40.
One problem I can see with having many more than the current number of seven members in the RA is that the chat log is already often confusing. Sometimes in a meeting I say something, like “Right†or “I agree,†and it doesn’t show up in the chat log until after two or three different things have been said by other people. When speaking I try to be careful to do so quickly, so it does not get completely lost in the course of the conversation. Going back and rereading through the transcripts, I also find the discussions difficult to follow and to make sense of. How would this become if we had 40 members in the RA?
FR --
You are right, I missed that. I have never cared out the theoretical cap because it has been so obviously theoretical. Forty is a more than sufficient theoretical cap based on our nationstate ambitions. Seven is far too small unless we want to redefine ourselves as a town rather than state, and the RA as a town council rather than a legislature.
Sonja --
You are also right. The transcripts had this problem (delayed responses that confused the issue) when we had an RA of 5. With and RA of 7, it is nuts. The way to handle this is to have formal structured conversations and debate. EAch speaker is given time to speak -- and the rules prohibit interruptions. This is the American model under RRO; the British, Canadian, and other models I have seen are fun to watch because of the shouts of "hear hear" and the catcalls from the other side of the house, but they are not really the kinds of things that can support a realtime, verbatim transcript.
Beathan
The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that capping the RA at five seats is the right thing to do. If we imagine our community growing in the way planned, we will shortly have 120 or so citizens with about 10-12 RA members. Imagine that! Even with highly structured RA procedures it's going to take a long time to get anything done in meetings.
I'm reminded of the changes that took place in the EU when we went from 15 member states to 25, and now 27. In the kind of meetings that I go to in Brussels each member state is allowed one or two delegates and all sit around a long table (a very long table!) with the Commission and sometimes the Presidency represented as well. On most controversial issues everyone wants to have their say so we have a 'table round' in which every member state states their position. We then often have to have a second table round as everyone replies to points other countries have made. With 15 this was ponderous but workable, with 27 it's impossible. This was one of the motivations for the (unsuccessful) EU Constitution and the current Lisbon Treaty.
Adopting Robert's Rules (or some other structure) is a workable adaptation to take in the face of a growing RA but it doesn't solve all the problems. Meetings will become much more formal but that means they'll also become more lengthy. With 10 or more RA members and Robert's Rules meetings are going to have to last longer than two hours weekly in order to get anything done. Given the choice between six hour meetings and keeping the number of RA members at 5, I would argue that the latter is the best solution. This is by no means a limiting factor on expansion; elected representatives in the real world often represent constituencies of 60 000 citizens or more. A 'cap' of 300 000 citizens seems more than adequate to me! In reality, we would probably adjust the size of the RA as we grow; it may seem like 'too few' when we have a 1000 or more citizens. But that's not a problem we need to solve today. A good solution right now is to limit the RA to 5 members.
And, just to be clear, I've amended my proposal to make it clear that the RA should go to 5 members from the next RA onwards i.e. it is not retrospective and does not apply to the current 7-seat RA.
One further observation on the RA size. I do think we need to look at the RA size. However, the RA size should not be considered as part of an RA procedures bill.
The size and makeup of the RA is a Constitutional matter. RA procedures are not. Rather, RA procedures are an internal RA matter -- subject to RA control at any given time. The SC probably lacks jurisdiction to consider or review internal RA procedures. However, the SC certainly has a concern with and jurisdiction over such Constitutional issues as RA size.
It is important that we keep these debates separate.
Beathan
Beathan wrote:One further observation on the RA size. I do think we need to look at the RA size. However, the RA size should not be considered as part of an RA procedures bill.
The size and makeup of the RA is a Constitutional matter. RA procedures are not. Rather, RA procedures are an internal RA matter -- subject to RA control at any given time. The SC probably lacks jurisdiction to consider or review internal RA procedures. However, the SC certainly has a concern with and jurisdiction over such Constitutional issues as RA size.
It is important that we keep these debates separate.
Beathan
I disagree. Your contention is that the RA needs new elaborate procedures because the RA has grown from 5 to 7 members (despite evidence to the contrary from two previous RAs where the same procedures worked perfectly well). Coming at the problem from a different direction, I've suggested limiting the RA to 5 members. It's perfectly valid, and perfectly fine, to propose a constitutional amendment to this effect in this discussion. It is, in fact, a "Simple" solution to the problem and one which I would expect Simplicity Party supporters, as proponents of minimal government, to be in favour of.